6.857: Computer and Network Security

Selected Projects

Below are a selected projects and presentations. If you would like to have your project posted (and we hope you will), please send your slides to the TAs.

BitTAKA: Anonymous BitTorrent. By Tural Badirkhanli, Amrik Kochhar, Albert Ni, and Kuat Yessenov. [slides | paper]
Stronger Hash Functions Through Block Shuffling. By Elizabeth Reid, Chris Wilkens, and Christina Wright. [slides | paper]

Project ideas

One source of ideas for your final project might be Phillip Hallam-Baker's new book, The dotCrime Manifesto. Hallam-Baker has compiled a short list of potential projects related to the book. We encourage you to take a look at this page and consider the suggested projects.

Individual Project Ideas

Click here to view the individual ideas for the Term Project. Use these for inspiration or to help find like-minded people to work with. The page is in the protected area, so you will need to use the same username and password used to access to the problem set solutions.

Topics from Previous Years

SmartBoard -- Encrypted BBS with Secure Server
Secure Message Passing for High-Performance Distributed Computing
Security and Usability of Card-Based Ciphers
Security Policy and Mechanisms for Electronic Personal Health Records
NetWatch: Taking Back the Internet
Analyzing Network Traffic from a Class B Darknet
Flingetty: Secure Multiparty Computation for a Dating Match-up System
Quantum Cryptography: A Viability and Security Analysis
Proposed Standard for DVD Security
Secure Peer-to-Peer Backup Systems
Anonymous Routing in a Peer-to-Peer Network
eSnack
Analysis of Password Recovery Schemes
Secure Corporate IM
An Incentives-based Framework for Secure Peer-to-Peer Media
Continual Authentication with Keystroke Dynamics
Enhanced User Authentication Through Keystroke Biometrics
Two Perspectives on PGP Usability
An Investigation of Current Methodologies in Buffer Overflow Attack and Prevention
The Security of Time
User Tracking on Trusting Networks
SEC: SSH like client
A Secure Media Distribution Framework
How to Make the User Authentication Process in MS Passport More Secure
Blinded Distributed Computing
Security of Wireless Networks and Mobile Devices
Cracking Digital Satellite TV
User Authentication in Cryptographic File Systems
Steganography in Spam
Proactive Cryptography Applications in Smart Cards
Execution-Based Software Protection
Steganography in TCP timestamps
Rethinking Software Piracy: Active Software Rights Verification for Effective Control of Piracy
Reputation-Based Certificate Authorities
Cookie authentication
Analyzing the Security of 802.11 Wireless Networks
Threshold Signatures and Open Source
Honeypots
Security and Privacy Issues of Microsoft Passport
Security Aspects of Unicode
Digital Signatures for Physical Mail
Differential Fault Analysis of RC5
Secure Instant Messengers
A Review of AES Candidates
A Payword Implementation
An Analysis of TIMEBOMB
Purple: Japanese ciphers in WWII
Identity Theft
Approaches to MIXNets
SmartCards: Back from the Dead
Payment via GSM Mobile phones
Digital Multimedia Copyright Protection
Security Analysis of Electronic Postage Systems
Security of Network Attached Storage
Software Bugging
Design of a secure Pilot-based Authentication System
Intrusion Detection Systems
Cellular Telephone Security
A Computer Testing System
Copyright Protection Mechanisms in DVD + divx
CGI Security Issues
Network Access Controls
Digital Money-- Fault Tolerant Multibank System
Security Policy Models
An Overview of Biometric Technologies and their Real World Applications
Netbook
Secure Sockets Layer 3.0: Overiew and Analysis
Secure Perfectly Forward Secure Email Wizard
Cryp: An All-or-Nothing Encryption Scheme for Secure Multi-user Information Distribution
Frosty the Random Number Generator
Impact of Quantum Theory on Cryptography
Cartemis:Secure Electronic Wallet Technology
Preventing Media Piracy
Netscape's "What's Related" Service and Privacy/Security Issues
Secure Electronic Poker
PGP vs S/MIME
A Study of SSH
ATM A trusted machine?
Secure Mobile Code Framework
Pseudonyms and Credential Transfer
Electronic Payment Schemes
eCheck:A Safety-Oriented Electronic Check Scheme
Computing with Encrypted Data
Receipt-Free Secure Elections
A well-hidden module for remote control of Linux machines
The feasibility of quantum computation
Network Security for Chat Programs
Electronic Voting
New MIT Card
MIT Tech Cash
Peer-to-Peer Security
Anti-spam techniques
Designing Graphical Password Schemes
A survey of the meaning of trust across websites and a trust recommendation system to promote safe surfing
Web site verification
Designing a ``Really Nasty'' Rogue Wireless Access Point
A Study of MIT Information Systems
Time-Lapse Cryptography
Client-Side Issues Related to Developing World Anonymity
Usability and Security of ThreeBallot
A Security Analysis of Web Browsing With Tor
Security of Mobile Ad-hoc Networks
MUSSO: A Multi-User Single Sign-On System
Practical Physical Authentication for the Web
MP3 Steganography
SPP: A Security Protocol for Peer-to-Peer systems

Sample proposal

Differential Fault Analysis of RC5 (which does not follow this year's directions properly...)
DFA paper

Hints for writing your paper and giving your talk

How to make a good paper and talk
How (and How Not) to Write a Good Systems Paper
Advice on giving an academic talk
Sample 10-minute talk [Abstract, PDF, TEX tarball]